“Logan” director to helm Don Winslow’s “The Force” adaptation

PanARMENIAN.Net - “Logan” director James Mangold is in negotiations with Fox to develop and direct an adaptation of Don Winslow’s upcoming novel “The Force” about corrupt NYPD officers.

The talks with Mangold are taking place six months after Fox bought the movie rights to the crime thriller and set it up with Ridley Scott to produce through his Fox-based Scott Free company along with Michael Schaefer and Shane Salerno.

Fox’s sister company HarperCollins Publishers’ imprint William Morrow will release the new novel in June, which centers on a corrupt sergeant at the NYPD’s most elite crime-fighting unit who must choose between his family, his partners, and his life.

That preemptive deal came a year after the studio and Scott launched development of Winslow’s bestseller “The Cartel,” which centers on two former friends whose paths diverged when one went to work for the Drug Enforcement Agency and the other joined the Sonora drug cartel. The book covers the decade between 2004 and 2014 and is a follow-up to his 2006 novel “The Power of the Dog.”

Steve Asbell is overseeing “The Force” for the studio. Scott is in post-production on “Alien: Covenant,” which is due out on May 19 from Fox.

Winslow’s novels include “A Cool Breeze on the Underground” and four other titles centered on private investigator Neal Carey, along with “Savages” and “The Death and Life of Bobby Z,” which were both adapted into movies. Winslow wrote the screenplay for “Savages” with Oliver Stone and Salerno; Stone directed the 2012 film, which starred Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Demian Bichir, and Benicio del Toro.

Hugh Jackman’s “Logan” has been a strong performer for Fox with more than $460 million in worldwide grosses in its first two weeks. Mangold’s credits include “Walk the Line,” “Girl, Interrupted,” “3:10 to Yuma,” and “The Wolverine.”

The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.